Two factors that play a key role in climate change—increased climate warming and elevated ozone levels—appear to have detrimental effects on soybean plant roots, their relationship with symbiotic microorganisms in the soil and the ways the plants sequester carbon.

Plants have microscopically small pores on the surface of their leaves called stomata. These help plants regulate the influx of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. They also prevent the loss of too much water and withering away during drought.

A research team co-led by UCL has solved a decades-old mystery as to how Jupiter produces a spectacular burst of X-rays every few minutes.

It's hard to miss a flashlight beam pointed straight at you. But that beam viewed from the side appears significantly dimmer. The same holds true for some cosmic objects: Like a flashlight, they radiate primarily in one direction, and they look dramatically different depending on whether the beam points away from Earth (and nearby space telescopes) or straight at it.

To enable tissue renewal, human tissues constantly eliminate millions of cells, without jeopardizing tissue integrity, form and connectivity. The mechanisms involved in maintaining this integrity remain unknown. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS today revealed a new process which allows eliminated cells to temporarily protect their neighbors from cell death, thereby maintaining...

DNA is composed of nucleobases represented by the letters A, T, G and C. They form the basis of the genetic code and are present in all living beings. But in a bacteriophage, another base, represented by the letter Z, exists. This exception, the only one observed to date, has long remained a mystery. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS, in collaboration with the CEA, have now...

Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon reached a record in June for the fourth consecutive month, according to official data released Friday.

America remains awash in refuse as new cases of the coronavirus decline—and that has reignited a debate about the sustainability of burning more trash to create energy.

Lawmakers in Congress on Friday introduced a bill that would pump tens of billions of dollars into fixing and upgrading the country's dams.

Bug experts are dropping the common name of a destructive insect because it's considered an ethnic slur: the gypsy moth.

Food insecurity is a major problem in the U.S., and it worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides some relief, but millions of Americans still lack adequate access to healthy food. A new study from the University of Illinois proposes a potential solution.

Ed Steponaitis jumps off the boat and trudges through the murky, lukewarm Gulf of Mexico. His shorts soak in the waist-deep saltwater.

A trio of researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, has found the secret to fireflies flashing in unison: interacting locally through an active network of visual connections. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Raphael Sarfati, Julie Hayes and Orit Peleg, describe their study of the glowing insects in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, and...

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

Pichia pastoris (syn. Komagataella phaffii), a model methylotrophic yeast, can easily achieve high density fermentation, and thus is considered as a promising chassis cell for efficient methanol biotransformation. However, inefficient gene editing and a lack of synthetic biology tools hinder its metabolic engineering toward industrial application.

An unprecedented heat wave that started around June 26 smashed numerous all-time temperature records in the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), aboard the Aqua satellite, captured the progression of this slow-moving heat dome across the region from June 21 to 30. An animation of some of the AIRS data show surface air temperature anomalies—values...

Although the giant panda is in practice a herbivore, its masticatory system functions differently from the other herbivores. Through the processes of natural selection, the giant panda's dietary preference has strongly impacted the evolution of its teeth and jaws. Researchers from the Institute of Dentistry at the University of Turku and the Biodiversity unit of the University of Turku together...

How does unicellular life transition to multicellular life? The research team of Professor Lutz Becks at the Limnological Institute of the University of Konstanz has taken a major step forward in explaining this very complex process. They were able to demonstrate—in collaboration with a colleague from the Alfred Wegner Institute (AWI)—that the unicellular green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii,...

Mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, convert sustenance into energy, fueling the cell's activities. In addition to power, mitochondria also produce reactive oxygen species, byproduct molecules primed to help facilitate communication among the other units in the cells. But when produced too abundantly, they damage DNA and render some cellular components dysfunctional. Now, an international...

A new instrument that will fly to the moon has been delivered to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Scientists from the Division of Physics at the University of Tsukuba used the quantum effect called 'spin-locking' to significantly enhance the resolution when performing radio-frequency imaging of nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond. This work may lead to faster and more accurate material analysis, as well as a path towards practical quantum computers.

Coral reefs are a favorite spot for scuba divers and are among the world's most diverse ecosystems. For example, the Hawaiian coral reefs, known as the 'rainforests of the sea', host over 7,000 species of marine animals, fishes, birds and plants. But coral reefs are facing serious threats, including a number of diseases that have been linked to human activity.

Marine scientists aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor have identified likely new marine species and deep sea organisms on nine seamounts that were explored for the first time in the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago. In a 34-day expedition that ended today, scientists also conducted high-resolution seafloor mapping of more than 30,000 square kilometers and video exploration of...

Hundreds of dead turtles continue to wash ashore in Sri Lanka, almost two months after a newly built container ship caught fire while anchored off Colombo's port.